Covid-19: European Commission funds projects in vaccine development
Following the publication of a 10 million euro call in January, the European Commission has secured an additional 37.5 million euro for urgently needed research on Covid-19 vaccine development, treatment and diagnostics, the Commission said on March 6.
“This action is part of the coordinated EU response to the public health threat of Covid-19,” the Commission said.
With the additional amount from the Horizon 2020 programme, the Commission is scaling up the emergency call launched in January to fight the COVID-19 outbreak to 47.5 million euro.
This allowed it to select 17 projects involving 136 research teams from across the EU and beyond, which will start working on developing vaccines, new treatments, diagnostic tests and medical systems aimed at preventing the spread of the new coronavirus.
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The emergency funding from Horizon 2020 enables researchers to work immediately to tackle the outbreak of the Coronavirus on several fronts.
“Seeing the research community getting in action so rapidly gives us new hope that we will soon be one step closer to our goal of stopping the spread of the virus.”
The Commission is currently negotiating grant agreements with the selected beneficiaries, the statement said.
